


Reach Out

by Braincoins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: For a Friend, Gen, Team as Family, birthday fic, blackashi, some Shallura if you squint and want to see it there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 04:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19124206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: Shiro's lost (again) after a battle. The team has to find him and Shiro has to figure out what to do.





	Reach Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mckinlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mckinlily/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to "Lily"! I hope you have the bestest birthday ever!  
> =========

            Shiro groaned as he opened his eyes. “What…?” He looked around, recognizing the cockpit. He instinctively reached for Black’s mind… and, at first, found nothing. That made him sit up straighter, widen his eyes, reach farther. And there she was: a quiet, reassuring growl. She was hurt, but she was alive – to the extent that the Lions were “alive.”

            He looked out the viewscreens. No Castle, no other Lions, no Galra command fleet. A quick scan found them nowhere within Black’s current range. “Where are we?”

            It came back to him: he’d been activating Black’s teleport, pouring his energy into the Lion’s ultimate ability. And then there’d been a pink-purple light from his right, and the blast had hit…

            “We teleported too far,” he guessed out loud. He sighed and brought up status screens.

            Black had suffered no external damage, but she’d taken the brunt of the blast – probably from Haggar and her damnable druids, he guessed. Her energy was low, and she’d automatically shunted that energy to life support. He rubbed one of the command sticks gently, the way you’d gently pet a cat. “Rest up, Black. I’ll figure out where we are.”

 

            “Coran, bring up the battle footage!” she barked.

            They’d had to retreat, there was no other option once the Black Lion had disappeared after that blast of evil magic. They were outnumbered and, without Voltron, there was no hope. But that didn’t mean Allura was about to give up on finding Shiro and the Black Lion.

            “Send it to me,” Pidge asked.

            “And me,” Hunk put in, jumping into his seat.

            “Right,” Coran agreed. “Putting it up on the main screen, too.”

            They all watched the blast – with that tell-tale glow of evil magic – hit the Black Lion right as its wings glowed into being and then it was just… gone.

            “Where’d he go?” Keith demanded.

            “Well, it’s hard to tell, but I can get a likely vector to start looking,” Pidge said, typing away at her station.

            “We’ll find him,” Allura declared with grim determination.

            “Can you locate the Black Lion?” Lance asked. “You could find the Lions before.”

            “I can try,” she agreed.

            But then a Galra fleet warped into view.

            “After I get us out of here!” Allura amended quickly. “Coran, we need somewhere to hide.”

            “Aye, Princess.”

            “We’ll buy you time,” Keith said from his station.

            “Shields up!” Hunk declared.

            Allura closed her eyes to warm up the teludav for Coran’s coordinates. _We’ll find you, Shiro. Just hang on._

 

            Black was recharging, but slowly. She took more energy than the other Lions, he’d always known that. He tried to give some of his own energy, but the blast had done some damage to him, too. They’d been linked, deeply in sync, when they were hit; sometimes it felt like his head was swimming, especially when he tried to align with Black in more than a cursory way.

            Life support systems were running, keeping the air breathable, keeping him in water at least. There were emergency rations, but he was careful with them. Because near as he could tell, he was far, far distant from the Castle.

            He tried not to think about it. He tried to focus on maintaining and helping Black, on making sure that he was still alive to do that. He tried to rest, tried not to think how far away he was from what had become his home. The Castle, Allura and Coran, Keith and Pidge and Lance and Hunk, the mice… the other Lions. That was Black, impinging upon his consciousness, but he welcomed her intrusion. It was reassuring. He wasn’t alone. He had Black with him.

            She missed the Castle and the other Lions.

            He missed the Castle and everyone on it.

            They missed home.

 

 

            It took a long time – and a lot of jumps – to find a good hiding place. And as soon as she was convinced they weren’t about to be surprised by the Galra, Allura closed her eyes and reached out for the Black Lion.

            She collapsed.

            The paladins and Coran gathered around her. “You’ve pushed yourself too hard,” Coran sighed.

            “I have to. We have to find Shiro.” She watched the mice run up onto her lap. They were urging her to rest as well. “We _have_ to find the Black Lion,” she insisted.

            “Let us do some standard scans,” Pidge said.

            “We can boost the signal a bit,” Hunk told her. “You should rest.”

            “How am I supposed to rest when we don’t know where Shiro is?!” she shot back.

            “Because you can’t do anything else,” Coran said loftily.

            “You need it,” Lance said gently.

            She looked to Keith, expecting he’d be on her side, at least.

            “… Shiro would tell you to rest,” he finally said.

            She huffed. “I’ll rest when I find him.” She shooed the mice off her lap with a mental command and stood back up, resting her hands on the command pillars.

            “Allura…” Coran began.

            “Don’t.” She closed her eyes and reached out again.

            The next thing she knew, she was being held up by Lance and Hunk. “Please rest?” Hunk pleaded.

            “I… I found…”

            “You found him?” Keith asked excitedly.

            She shook her head. “I found the Black Lion’s signature, barely, but all I know is it’s out there somewhere. I can’t focus long enough to find a location.” She hung her head.

            “At least we know they’re out there,” Lance said.

            “Lay down,” Pidge suggested. “We’ll do what we can.”

            “Maybe just a nap,” she agreed. “I’ll try again in a few vargas.”

            It’d been so long since they’d lost Shiro: over a quintant now. She supposed rest was necessary, to replenish her energy. But there was no way to sleep easy right now, with no Black Lion and no Shiro.

 

 

            “It’s been three quintants.” Shiro sighed, looking at the screens. They were still adrift in space. He shook his head. “We have to get back to the Castle. We need them to find us before Zarkon and the Galra do. That’s the most important thing.” He steeled himself.

            “Black,” he reached his hands towards the panel, “shunt remaining energy from life support to emergency beacon.” He closed his helmet’s visor. His suit could keep him alive a little while. But, ultimately, the Black Lion was more important than he was. Voltron was more important than one single life.

            _I don’t want to die, but… this is just how it has to be._

            He input the command.

            Nothing happened.

            His brow furrowed and he tried it again, in case he’d put it in wrong.

            Nothing happened.

            “Black. Send remaining energy to the emergency beacon.”

            Still nothing. Life support continued, the emergency beacon remained off.

            “Black,” he said sternly.

            And with a loud roar and a sudden spinning – like he was taking a load of Gs – he was back in that strange alter-space, where everything was black and purple, like he could cross the cosmos on black, volcanic glass, where the stars _were_ the sky, and everything was just subtly… off.

            He whipped his head around, looking for Zarkon, but there was no one else here: just him and the Black Lion, sitting there implacable and silent. He reached out to feel for some other presence, but it was only the two of them.

            Remembering the strange physics of this place, he kicked off the “ground” and up into the air, reaching his hand out to steady and stop himself with a hand on Black’s nose. This way they were, more or less, eye-to-eye.

            “What?” he demanded. “We can’t let Zarkon get ahold of you again. You’re more important…”

            He was cut off by a loud growl. And then, suddenly, a flood of images that he could feel as well as see: Black protecting him from that strange Galra …coffin that had brought the Myzax monster; Black – with Keith’s help – saving him from those creatures that wanted to eat him; the last time they were in this alter-space, when Black had saved him from Zarkon.       

            “I get it, I get it,” he said. “You protect me. You always have. And I’ll always be grateful. But this is my duty. This is _our_ duty, to the entire universe. I have my suit. I’ll be okay for a little bit.”

            Another growl, and other scenes. Black and Shiro bonding, when Shiro had seen through Black’s eyes; the two of them syncing so deeply that first time they’d teleported together, when they’d nearly defeated Zarkon; the way the two of them flowed together so seamlessly, so effortlessly, how they had melded so closely that they were – _are_ – nearly one.

            Black needed Shiro. Not just any pilot to sit in the seat: _Shiro_. And she refused to do _anything_ that would unnecessarily endanger him.

            He was about to argue again, but how could he? How did you argue against something – someone? – who had become the other half of your soul, in a sense? But then an idea occurred to him.

            He opened his eyes, back in the cockpit. “Black, maintain life support,” he said, helmet reopening to half-visor state. “And help me out here, if you can.”

            There was a quiet roar of triumph that Shiro could feel more than hear. He grinned, took hold of the command sticks, and closed his eyes to focus. The world spun around him again, but he tried to push through. He _had_ to do this.

 

 

            Allura pounded her fist on the command pillar. It’d been three quintants now, and they were no closer to finding Shiro. She couldn’t sleep longer than a few vargas at a time; she ate what was put in front of her but felt as if it didn’t nourish her at all. She was distracted and increasingly anxious as her many repeated attempts to find the Black Lion and its Paladin yielded nothing but the distant sense that they were still out there.

            _Everyone is depending on me to find Shiro and I can’t… I **can’t**_ …

            “Princess, can I suggest something?” Pidge asked.

            “Please,” she agreed, hanging her head in defeat.

            “Well… why don’t we help?”

            She raised her head to look at her. “Help how?”

            “Quintessence is life energy, right? As I learned on Olkarion, all life is connected. Quintessence – when it’s not altered by strange, creepy druid magic – should all be compatible. Is there any reason you can’t use some of _our_ energy to help find Shiro?”

            She blinked. “I… I don’t know. It sounds like it would work?” She looked to Coran.

            He nodded. “Sacred Altean quintessence is… well, for lack of a better term, superior to normal beings’ life energy, but I can’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work?”

            “It’s worth a shot,” Keith said, already standing from his seat. “How do we do this?”

            “Perhaps if we joined hands,” she suggested, reaching out.

            They all – including Coran – linked hands. “Close your eyes,” she told them, “and focus on Shiro or the Black Lion. Keep your thoughts on one or both of them. I’m… not sure what this will feel like, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

            “I hope not,” Hunk agreed.

            “It’s worth it if we can find Shiro,” Lance said.

            “Focus,” Coran chided them as the bridge lights went out and the star map came up.

            Allura closed her own eyes and reached out. Almost immediately her head went swimmy from the exertion she’d been putting herself through the last couple of quintants. But then she felt steadier, as if there were hands on her helping her stay upright. The weakness and disorientation faded. She put her mind to the same task she’d set the others.

            Shiro. His face, his smile, his strange hair and hideous (yet somehow adorable) ears. His calm, steady reassurance, both in and out of battle. His determination, his perseverance. He had to be out there, he had to still be alive, because he didn’t give up. He wasn’t the type.

            _Where are you?_

            She heard almost-musical squeaks and felt the mice on her shoulders. They were helping, too.

            She felt like she was at the eye of a hurricane of pure energy, and all she had to do was think to direct to its purpose. Her mind and heart focused on Shiro and her soul reached out along the links her father had established. Blue, Red, Yellow, Green: close at hand, safe, here in the Castle. Find Black. Find the heart and soul of Voltron, traditionally the most powerful, the strongest bond in her.

            She found something so weak, so thready and small that, at first, she couldn’t believe that to be the Black Lion. It was a newborn kitten compared to the full-grown lion she was used to, tiny and in need of protection rather than the large, fierce protector she knew.

            And then, suddenly, a signal blazed forth from it.

            “The emergency beacon!” Pidge said.

            And, at the same time she said that, Keith exclaimed, “Shiro!”

            And it was. They were both right: Black’s emergency beacon had activated, and the energy behind that beacon was unmistakably Shiro’s quintessence.

            “Black must have been badly damaged,” Hunk observed. “If its energy reserves got too low…”

            “Nevermind all that!” Lance declared. “We found him, let’s go get him!”

            Allura transferred the coordinates to the star map and opened her eyes. “Set that as our jump point, Coran.”

            “Are you sure you can activate the teludav?” he asked worriedly.

            She grinned, squeezing the hands of her team before she let go. “I’m sure. Thanks to all of you.”

 

 

            It was so good to be back in the Castle, and Shiro didn’t know what he wanted to do first: eat, shower, sleep, perhaps drink water that _wasn’t_ recycled urine? But the decision was made for him as he suddenly had his arms full of Princess Allura, followed by Keith and Lance and all the rest of them. Even the mice ran up the Princess’s back to get in on the group hug.

            “Welcome home,” Allura murmured against his chest.

            He smiled and hugged back as best he could. “Thanks. You have no idea how good it is to be here.”


End file.
